As we know of no place, nearer than the sources of the Mississippi, or the Rocky Mountains, where the refuge of a station is now requisite for security from the Indians; as the remains of those that were formerly built are fast mouldering to decay; and as in a few years history will be the only depository of what the term station imports, we deem it right, in this place, to present as graphic a view as we may, of a station, as we have seen them in their ruins in various points of the west.

The first immigrants to Tennessee and Kentucky, as we have seen, came in pairs and small bodies.  These pioneers on their return to the old settlements, brought back companies and societies.—­Friends and connections, old and young, mothers and daughters, flocks, herds, domestic animals, and the family dogs, all set forth on the patriarchal emigration for the land of promise together.  No disruption of the tender natal and moral ties; no annihilation of the reciprocity of domestic kindness, friendship, and love, took place.  The cement and panoply of affection, and good will bound them together at once in the social tie, and the union for defence.  Like the gregarious tenants of the air in their annual migrations, they brought their true home, that is to say their charities with them.  In their state of extreme isolation from the world they had left, the kindly social propensities were found to grow more strong in the wilderness.  The current of human affections in fact naturally flows in a deeper and more vigorous tide, in proportion as it is diverted into fewer channels.

These immigrants to the Bloody Ground, coming to survey new aspects of nature, new forests and climates, and to encounter new privations, difficulties and dangers, were bound together by a new sacrament of friendship, new and unsworn oaths, to stand by each other for life and for death.  How often have we heard the remains of this primitive race of Kentucky deplore the measured distance and jealousy, the heathen rivalry and selfishness of the present generation, in comparison with the unity of heart, dangers and fortunes of these primeval times—­reminding one of the simple kindness, the community of property, and the union of heart among the first Christians!

Another circumstance of this picture ought to be redeemed from oblivion.  We suspect that the general impressions of the readers of this day is, that the first hunters and settlers of Kentucky and Tennessee were a sort of demi-savages.  Imagination depicts them with long beard, and a costume of skins, rude, fierce, and repulsive.  Nothing can be wider from the fact.  These progenitors of the west were generally men of noble, square, erect forms, broad chests, clear, bright, truth-telling eyes, and of vigorous intellects.

All this is not only matter of historical record, but in the natural order of things.  The first settlers of America were originally a noble stock.  These, their descendants, had been reared under circumstances every way calculated to give them manly beauty and noble forms.  They had breathed a free and a salubrious air.  The field and forest exercise yielded them salutary viands, and appetite and digestion corresponding.  Life brought them the sensations of high health, herculean vigor, and redundant joy.